


Waiting for Easter

by fresne



Series: Waiting for Easter [2]
Category: Ancient Egyptian Religion, Egyptian Mythology, Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Genre: Character of Color, F/M, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology Egyptian, Yuletide, challenge:New Year Resolutions, recipient:Mari, yuletide2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-31
Updated: 2005-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Horus is mumbling in the Berkeley hills. Easter is brooding over hot cross buns in the Haight. Really. It's all Set's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for Easter

**Author's Note:**

> Listen to it [here](http://fresne.podbean.com/mf/play/umtuve/waiting_for_easter.mp3)
> 
> The following inspiration for this work and inspiration for my dialogue, where I am not directly quoting, because apt quotes are cool:  
> Egyptian Mythology  
> Neil Gaiman's American Gods

Horus

"Il est fou comme un livre du Mars." French saying

He sits next to the cow.

It is a happy cow.

Happy cows come from California.

The happy cow is not his mother.

She told him the true name of Ra. Re is the sun. He is the sun. The sun is shining cool on the hill. The hill is green. There are blue flowers. The gold ones have not yet come out of the ground.

With one eye, he can see the shining city on the other side of the bay. With his other, he can only see fog choking the red bridge and hiding where Easter is.

He was supposed to be in the penalty box, but he didn't want to.

He wants to see Easter, but he cannot. She will not let him.

He cannot see his mother. She went away. East. Or West. Or down. Or smoke.

For now the cow can be his mother. She chews on grass. He talks. He cannot stop. Easter is not there to wrap him up.

What is the noblest thing that a man can do? Avenge his father and mother for the evil done to them.

The cow eats grass.

And what animal is most useful for the avenger to take with him as he goes out to battle? A horse is best for pursuing a flying foe and cutting him off from escape.

The cow eats grass.

What shape should vengeance wear? That of a falcon, swift and keen eyed.

Another cow walks over. It is also a happy cow. It says moo.

He does not want to see the happy cows.

So, he is a hawk and he rides the gyring up. Out over the hills. Out over the wide delta. He could follow the river. Follow the American river up into the mountains. Where it is cold and blue. He could be cold and blue. He could eat rabbit. Eat the soft bits up and wipe the red blood away on white river sand.

He circles out over the river.

He had not meant to hurt her.

He didn't think.

He could not remember.

He had not meant.

He flew away from the delta. Away from the river. It was too short. He did not want to be blue. He didn't want red blood and white sand. He circled back over the green hills. He swooped low.

He went back to the penalty box. He put on the clothes that she'd given him. Wrapped up his chest and legs and feet. Wrapped up naked in soft cotton. She had told him that things that aren't wrapped cannot be unwrapped.

He went into the penalty box that not a box. It was a line of stones and grass in a quarry. A curving path that wrapped in on itself. He walked in. It looped like entrails. Like soft bits protected by hard stone. Green grass growing between.

He came to the middle. He sat down. He waited.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Easter

"In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth." Milton

"There are not enough hot cross buns in the world," she says. She picks up a bun and licks the white icing in the shape of a cross. Or is it in the shape of the quarters. Or is it the shape a symbol for the sun. Or is in the shape of soft sweet vanilla sliding across her tongue. She licks the icing and bites into the soft sweet bread. Snuggles down into her bright yellow Papasan chair and clicks play on the remote. It's a new DVD, but she skips the extras. Today she needs the pure stuff.

She licks sugar off hot cross buns with slow licks and a bit of teeth. She snuggles in her bright happy pillow chair wearing her blue Beatrix Potter flannel pajamas and watches her favorite movie. She hums, "On the Avenue, Park Avenue..."

She really doesn't feel any better. She's actually still kind of pissed.

Snookey Ookums cutie.

She picks up a sweet bun and crumbs go everywhere. She wants to wallow. She sits in her giant chair like a cup, like half an egg boiled. She sits surrounded by crumbs and watches Fred Astaire break Judy Garland's heart.

Judy croons, "For ev'ry rose that withers and dies, Another blooms in its stead, A new love waits to open its eyes, After the old love is dead, That sounds all right in a careless rhyme, But there's seldom a second time."

She gustful sighs. Time for measures drastic and dire.

She unwraps a Cadbury egg.

The shiny red and blue foil crumples and tears in her haste. She bites into the gooey sugar rush.

She's beginning to feel a little sick.

Outside, the sun shines on the heavy curtains. Outside.

Inside, Judy buys her man a bonnet with all the frills upon it and takes him walking in the Easter Parade.

She says, "This is my weekend. My festival days. And I am not going to sit in here moping. I want a Jamba Juice!" The sound of her voice echoes in the small apartment. She feels old and foolish.

She changes into a dress strewn with passionate red flowers. She hasn't showered. It's not like it matters.

She walks outside and blinks. A wave of tie die shirts are walking down the street. Briefly she misses grunge. Maybe she should move into SOMA. Simmer in the South of Market Industrial Goth Leather. Maybe not. She likes it here. It's an easy walk to the park.

She stands in line and opts for a boost of Femme and Energy with her Mango. It's more of a summer drink, but she likes it. It makes her think of the afternoon.

She walks down the panhandle. There are girls on skates and boys with dogs and hobos resting under newspapers. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, but this part of the city doesn't really care. She walks down the length of the park and under the underpass. Flowers do not blossom where she walks. Grass does not grow where her feet fall.

Her thighs brush each other with each step. Nothing like a man for gaining weight. She walks into the Golden Gated park. Wild woods laid down by men over sand dunes. She walks through woods and groves. Birds do not flock towards her. Young things plump in their strollers don't reach out and wave.

She walks and she feels sweaty and she wishes that she'd washed her hair. She walks and her feet hurt and then she's standing in the botanical garden where it happened.

She sits down on the grass and watches Japanese tourists. Watches two trim young beautiful men throw each other a red disk and she doesn't even care.

A shadow blocks her light. She says, "I'm not ready to talk to you."

"Hey, he attacked me," says Set. He is wearing a red pin-stripped zoot suit with a gold chain and a purple hat with a purple feather.

"I asked you to be nice to him." She looks down at the ivy henna'd across her hand. It is fading. He'd been so serious and careful as he dabbed the henna with an olive oil soaked cue tip. Because she'd asked him to do it.

"Easter, come on. Hey," Set smiles all teeth in his aardvark face. "I'm all dressed and ready to go dancing tonight. On the avenue. You know you want to."

"You're not going to get on my good side by wearing my colors." She sips her jumbo jamba. Sips her Femme and her Energy and her mango. She sits under a flaming flowering tree and the heat doesn't reach her. She sits next to poppies and the sun is too bright. She looks at her old acquaintance and sees clouds. "You just had to push him. I told you and you had to do it anyway." She sighs and looks at her old friend with his natty hat and stylish goatee. "You were being you. He was being him and I was being me." She hands him her empty cup, "I was just hoping for something a little different," and she walks away from him.

She doesn't look back. She doesn't need to. She knows that she's leaving a trail of blue bells. She can hear them whispering to the ferns.

The edge of the park is never really that far.

She waits for the bus. She climbs on and sits in a blue plastic seat next to an old black woman wearing a green hat. She nods at the old woman. She nods at a young androgyny in black everything with silver ankh earrings sitting across from her.

The old woman says, "Happy Easter."

She says, "Thank you. You as well."

The bus rumbles across the city. Rattles up the steep hills. The old woman gets off at a grocery store.

She gets off at the next stop. She stands in front of the cathedral of a more fortunate immigrant and waits.

The lecture, as always, is interesting. The Minster-priestess-person explains the history of the shape they are about to walk. The round primeval shapes mounded in Crete. The loops and curled shapes carved in leafy England's ancient stone tombs. Dead places arranged so that the sun would shine down into their depths one day of the year. On the Summer Solstice.

But this isn't there or then. This is the time of the equinox. When all things are equal. This is when things wax. When the balance tips towards light. The lecture ends. As they walk in, they are handed bells for the harmony walk. Her bell is high and sweet.

She goes into the cool depths of that other immigrant's church and stands in front of her labyrinth.

The nave is the head of the church. The transept the arms. And the labyrinth is the womb. She throws off her flip flops and she steps into the womb. Follows the path inward. She rings her bell and the bells of other wanderers answer. She walks on arched feet and rides the lines in. Follows the notes gliding down. She comes to the flower at the center of the labyrinth and she puts aside her high bell.

She picks up the heavy bell that is waiting in the middle of the painted petals. She knocks it forward and back and the deep sound rolls. She waits in the center until the sound dies. Then she walks out again.

It's a long bus ride home and the sun is setting. Tonight, she wants to bathe in apple blossoms and wash her hair in milk. She wants to read a Harlequin romance. She wants to paint her toenails. It is her festival day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Horus

"O lady of virtue, through whom, alone the human kind surpasses everything within the smallest circle of the heavens, so grateful to me is thy command that my obedience, were it given already, is late." Dante

"She rang, she rang, she rang," he sings to the morning birds. "Eostre of the morning rang. I am Horus of the afternoon and it's her morning." The faintest brush of light tints the sky. Soon the bustling sun will come.

He puts a feather in the center of the bendy box and walks back out. He picks blue and yellow and flowers. She like flowers. He walks and he picks.

He walks because he wants to be the other things. He walks up the hill and around the hill and over the hill to the parking lot where the early morning joggers are gathering. It's Easter's Sunday and it's clear as a bell. The fog has rolled away.

He walks down the road and he walks down the road and he walks down the road and it's a long way. He wishes someone would stop and help him go.

A rusted and pealing green car stops. "Hey. Do you, like, need a ride or something?" says the boy inside.

"Yes. I am going to see Easter." He hops on one foot and then the other.

"Cool." The boy nods, "I'm like going to So. Cal, but I can like take you as far as BART or something" The boy opens the passenger door. The plastic attached to the door frame slips to the ground. "Yeah. It does that. You have to hold it up," says the boy.

He holds up the plastic thing as he slides into the car. There is a metal coil coming out of the seat. It pokes him. But that is okay.

He examines the plastic figures glued to the car's ceiling. They hold up the drooping fabric. They wear capes and their groins are smooth. He looks at the figures and talks and the boy drives.

The car rolls down the hill. It is dying. It belches black smoke, but he has no power of healing. He is a god of vengeance and sunshine. His mother was the healer, like Easter. Maybe she could heal this car. He wonders if the car has a name.

"Boanerges, cuz, like, it's a son of thunder or something," mumbles the boy as the car stops at a light. "Dude, be cool." The boy points, "BARTs over there."

He smiles and hands the boy a rabbit bone.

The boy takes the bone and says, "Cool." They wrestle with the door and the boy drives away.

He stands on the curb. There are many of people. They are very loud. A girl with pink hair is standing at the corner with a sign. She says, "Do you have any change."

"I can change a lot." He says, "I can become a hawk, but I want to be a man when I go see Easter. The hawk is for other things. I don't feel like being Harendotes today."

"Yeah, whatever. This is my corner," she says.

"Oh," he says and he crosses the street when everyone else crosses the street and he stands on the other corner. The people are going into a glass and metal circle. They are going down into the earth. So, he follows them.

You always have to go down into the earth. Father told him that.

The stairs move and there is a blind man at the bottom of the stairs playing a fiddle. He follows the people until he comes to a glass box. There is a man trapped inside.

He says to the man, "I need to go to Easter."

The man looks up from his book and says, "Well, if you want to take BART, you need a ticket."

He says, "Can I have a ticket?"

The man sighs and puts a marker in his book, "Do you have any money?"

"No," he says.

"Then, no, you can't have a ticket." The man goes back to reading his book.

He sits down on the tiles. They are cold and the light is yellow here. He could go back up. Fly to Easter, but the hawk is for other things and he wants to be a man today. He sits on the tiles and he wonders what he should do.

An old woman in a green suit with a matching hat says, "Are you all right honey?"

An old woman in a blue suit with a matching purse says, "Don't talk to him. You stop to take care of every stray we won't make it to church on time."

"Ruby, it's Easter," says the green woman.

"Do you know Easter?" he says, "I'm trying to go to her, but I don't have a ticket."

"I don't know your Easter," the green woman says, "but where does she live?"

"Izzy, we'll be late," says the blue woman.

"We can spare a minute, we got all the time we need." The green woman smiles at him, "Now honey, where you trying to go?"

"To the city across the water," He points towards the city, if the city were subterranean.

The green woman pats his head and the blue woman rolls her eyes. The green woman goes to the man in the glass box. In a moment, she returns and hands him a little piece of paper. She says, "Now young fella, you take this ticket and you can go all the way to Millbrae with it if you need to. You get a transfer at whatever station you get off at and you go see your Easter on this pretty spring day, you hear."

He smiles and says, "I hear you," and, "thank you. I should bless you. I did that once." He puts his hand on her hand and smiles.

"Well, you go and go see your girl now. Now if I don't get going, Ruby here will have a hemorrhage and then they'll hafta start singing without us and we can't have that now can we?" The feather in the green woman's hat bobs as her head moves.

"No." he says and he watches the old women go up the moving stairs.

He watches the people go in and out. He goes through the machine with his ticket. He goes down into the earth. A train comes. It is going where he wants to go so he gets in. The doors close. It rumbles beneath the earth. It climbs above the roads. It goes to a station above the earth next to metal monsters. He can see the city in the distance.

Then the doors close again.

The train goes under the ground. The tunnel screams. Sparks fly off of the walls. But he has protected Re against Apophis in Re's journeys under the earth. He is the sun. He is not afraid.

The train comes to the city and he follows the people as they stream out. He watches them and he goes out the gates. He sees a woman in a glass box strung with little lights. He asks her for a transfer and she gives it to him with a smile. He asks her how to get to the big park and she tells him. She tells him and he gives her one of Easter's flowers. He knows Easter won't mind. It was a blue flower. Not one of the yellow ones.

He goes above. He goes up above into the valleys of the buildings and he sees that the sun is not yet high. It is still morning. He smiles. He is going to see Easter.

He waits until he sees a bus with the number that he wants and everything seems just a little clearer. He is going to find Easter. He gets on the bus and he gives the big man in the front his transfer and he waits as the bus starts and stops across town.

He is getting closer and there are women wearing hats with flowers. Across from his seat is a little girl with a toy rabbit and a basket filled with painted eggs. She is wearing a white dress with a pink ribbon. She is sitting next to her mother and her little feet swing back and forth. She smiles at him. She is missing a tooth and the others are streaked with chocolate.

He smiles at her. He is humming a song, but he does not remember the words. It is very old. Or very new. Or both.

It has something to do with little Annubis froo froo and bopping things on heads. The little girl seems to know it. She giggles.

He gets off the bus and walks up the park and she is there sitting on the green grass: she is waiting with a basket of food.

He stands over her and says, "Hello."

She blushes a little and says, "Hello."

He says, "I'm sorry."

He says, "I shouldn't have tried to kill him."

She says, "No, you shouldn't. But it's okay. There's curried rabbit and chocolate."

The sun is on her hair and she is sunlight.

The sun is shining in his right eye and he looks at her without blinking, and he is her crazy mumbling boy.

If she had stars in her eyes, it would be night time.

They both belong to the morning. They belong to the day. She holds out her hand with the fading henna and says, "Come now, let's go celebrate my day."

He smiles shyly and they hold hands as they sit in the park and feed each other rabbit and chocolate and dappling light.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


End file.
